The Slain
by Insolent Muffin
Summary: A bright young girl with a mysterious, terrifying past is forced to face her inner demons. Follow her struggle to survive in a town where her deepest, darkest fears become reality...
1. Prologue

**::The Slain::**  
  
Warning: this story contains drugs, violence, death, suicide, religion, and sexual themes. The rating may change to R as the plot progresses. As for all of you looking forward to the drugs, violence, etc. . . you can rest assured that there will most likely be much more than what you see here . . . that is, unless you'd prefer something else. Any suggestions?   
  
Prologue  
  
_I have seen a gentle shape again  
Looking at this person  
The sea embraces me, small that I am  
  
I do not know that voice, for it shouts nothing to me  
  
Shot up from behind, in front of my closing eyes, I was laughing  
Shot up from behind, I vanish completely_  
  
~ "The Slain", Luna Sea  
  
Dear David,  
  
I have spent long, sleepless hours wondering just how to begin this letter, and worrying that you won't understand what I have to say. There's no easy way to tell you, I have to be straightforward: I'm going away . . . not to a better place, but to a place that will give me what I deserve.   
  
You must know that it isn't because I don't love you and Kara. I love you more than anything, more than life itself. That's why I'm giving you this chance. I have secrets, dark secrets that you never knew. I'll never forgive myself for what happened to Michael. It was my fault that he was born the way he was, and it was my fault that he died so long before his time.   
  
My life with you was one huge lie from the night we met. I told you when you found me lying bloody and broken on the street that my boyfriend had drugged me, raped me, beaten me, but not a word of it was the truth. I was on drugs, addicted, and in fact the drugs are the only thing that gives me the strength to write this. That night, I sold my body for the first time, but I was unlucky. A man took me into his bed, but when I told him I had to collect my money and leave, he tried to kill me. I managed to escape, and when you walked up, you looked like an angel sent from heaven. I tried to come clean for you, I swear, I really did, but it was too hard. I'm weak, David . . .and that's why I'm accepting my destiny now before it's too late, before I can do any more damage to this world.   
  
I lied again when I told you that I couldn't get pregnant. I felt so bad after we adopted Kara and then I had a baby of my own . . . I pretended it was an amazing coincidence, but in truth I guess the birth control pills that I hid from you failed. I lied to you because I was afraid that our baby would be born horribly deformed, and I was right. Now it's time to end the lies. I pray that speaking the truth will somehow save my soul, but I know it's not enough simply to tell you. You are a good man, David, and you are destined for wonderful things. I'm afraid that I will not see you again, in this life or the next, but you can still save yourself and Kara. Teach her to be religious and praise the Lord, but never venture into Dahlia Gillespie's church, for that is a dark realm of horrors containing secrets that even here I don't dare to divulge. I'd like to be able to blame her, say that I was misled, but deep down inside I know that's not true. Had I tried to resist, I would have succeeded. Now there's only one way out, but first I must confess the most terrible secret my heart contains: I hated our son.  
  
I hated Michael for being the way that he was - a freak. I was glad when he died. I only pretended to cry at his funeral because it's what I was expected to do, but I honestly couldn't find it in my heart to love my very own son. For this, I have grown to hate the world and myself. Kara was always close to you, and the two of you will be fine without me. What has happened to me is no one's fault but my own. Take care of Kara, and be sure she never falls into the trap in which I spent long, lonely years searching for a way out. Visit Michael's grave, and show him that at least one parent loved him and cared. Promise me that when the Devil whispers into your ear, you won't listen.  
  
Love always and forever,  
Anna 


	2. The Change

**::The Slain::**  
  
Chapter One: The Change   
  
"What the . . . oh no!" were the first words out of Kara Sanders' mouth one cloudy Tuesday morning. A rainstorm must have been approaching, for outside Kara's window was an angrily stirring maelstrom of ominous black clouds. It was almost as black as night, but the glowing green numbers displayed on Kara's digital alarm clock claimed otherwise.  
  
"10:25! Yikes! Why didn't my alarm go off at eight like usual?" Kara wondered aloud. She rolled out of bed, blue eyes bright and wide, short blond hair sticking out at wild angles. She pulled a few random items out of a pile on the floor - a wrinkled green shirt that declared "Girls Rule . . . Boys Drool" in bright blue letters and a pair of denim shorts as small as Midwich Elementary dress codes allowed - and she quickly began to dress.  
  
If Kara hurried, she could be ready to go in ten minutes or less. It took only a few more minutes to get to school if she ran, but it was already so late! She has missed her two favorite classes, science and gym. At this rate she would arrive in the middle of the most dreaded, terrifying, boring class of all - history. Kara briefly considered taking the morning slow, making herself some cinnamon toast for breakfast, finishing up that math assignment she'd abandoned in favor of TV the night before, and arriving at school just in time for lunch. She decided against cutting class, however; whenever Kara came in late, the lady in the office always called Kara's dad at work, and the later it was, the harder it would be to craft a believable story for both Dad and the administrators.  
  
Removing her neon purple pajama pants in favor of her old, frayed shorts, Kara thought, _stupid me! I must've forgotten to set the alarm last night. Like Dad always says, I should be more responsible._ "Stupid me," she repeated aloud, muttering under her breath. She knew that her dad had to work hard for a living. Dad got up really early every morning and left for the big factory he worked at over in Brahms before the sun was up. He trusted Kara to get up and get herself to school. Some kids would've taken advantage of the freedom and skipped class every day, but Kara knew better. Though it wasn't exactly easy or fun, it was the least Kara could do to go to school and try as hard as possible. A sudden wave of guilt washed over her as she remembered a million tiny things - the incomplete math homework, the C in history on her last report card, the fight she'd gotten into at her basketball team's final game last season. She had failed her dad yet again, her wonderful dad who had to work twice as hard ever since Mom -  
  
No. Kara wouldn't start thinking about Mom again. Today was dark and dreary enough already. Quickly she switched her brain to another channel: the current sock issue.  
  
After fishing one sock out of a heap on the floor, Kara tore the room apart in search of another and finally located it in a most unlikely place - the sock drawer. Noticing the time (10:32) and the seconds slowly inching forward, Kara jammed her feet into her shoes and ran into the kitchen. "Note to self," she whispered, "take care of the greasy dishes piled up in the sink this afternoon before Dad comes home." Then Kara grabbed her backpack and the two dollars of lunch money left for her by the door, and she raced outside.  
  
The first thing Kara noticed when she stepped outside was the immense bank of fog that expanded before her. Kara held her hand out not even two feet in front of her face. To her surprise, she could barely see it! The fog was so think, in fact, that for a moment it seemed impossible to breathe. Kara gasped for air, began to hyperventilate, but managed to calm herself. _It's okay,_ she thought, remembering another foggy day buried deep in her memory. _Nothing can hurt me here._ She was a little nervous because she couldn't see if a car was coming through all the fog, but she couldn't hear any, and although the crossing guard was now off duty, the neon "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" sign was clearly visible from across the street. There was another worry, something that plagued Kara's memory every time she walked out of the house, especially on dark, foggy days like this one, but she wasn't willing to admit what that was, because if she did she knew she'd become completely hysterical and end up in the loony bin . . . just like before . . .   
  
Confidence close enough to restored, Kara walked on. Unfortunately, she soon noticed something else odd. It was cold, far too cold even for a crisp September morning. She wished her best friend Matt was there with her. Every morning (at least the mornings when she was on time) Kara met him at the corner of Levin and Matheson, which happened to be right in front of her house. Surely he would've let her borrow his jacket. When they were a lot younger, maybe eight or nine, they played Castle every single weekend, Matt as the brave night and Kara as the princess. Kara always wanted to be the knight, but once when Matt agreed to be the princess, he kept burping, and that was unbecoming for a beautiful young heir to the throne. Even now Matt made references to those days, trying to be courageous and gallant. Once he had tried to carry her over a puddle of mud, and before long both of them ended up lying in the puddle and giggling. Today he surely would have noticed Kara shivering and offered his jacket, and for once, Kara wouldn't mind being the princess at all.  
  
But of course Matt had gone off to school without her today. Kara wondered if he had waited long for her, maybe even come up to her house and knocked on her door. She hoped he wasn't too worried about her. For a crazy moment, Kara thought she saw Matt among the vague, blurry shifting shapes in the distance, but it was only a trick of the odd weather. Kara began to deeply regret missing the walk to school with Matt. She loved his sense of humor, his passion for sports, even his almost incapacitating fear of the dark. Kids didn't tease him about it anymore because they knew that Kara would break every bone in their bodies if they did (well, maybe that was exaggerating a little, but she _did_ break some guy's nose once). Most days Kara wouldn't get so depressed over missing the daily talk-for-too-long-and-then-dash-into-class-at-the-last-minute session, but she had an odd feeling that she'd never see Matt again . . .  
  
_You're just being silly,_ she told herself. _Matt will be right there in history, in the shadowy back corner, making jokes and doodling in his textbook like always. There's nothing to worry about at all._  
  
When Kara turned onto Midwich Street, the sky grew dramatically darker, and a light rain began to fall. Kara missed Matt even more. Suddenly she remembered her team jacket. She stopped walking, reached into her backpack, and pulled out a purple jacket with her team name, the Midwich Cuckoos, scrawled across the back in bright yellow. Until now, she had wondered why she hadn't seen any cars on the street or kids playing outside like usual, but she reasoned that one would have to be very near insane (or possibly late for school) to go outside in this weather. She put on her jacket and resumed her journey, realizing that she was only about a block away from school.  
  
And then she heard the growl.  
  
It was a low guttural sound, a dangerous sound, coming from only a few feet behind her, and Kara knew that it was a warning. Her heart skipped a beat. _A dog. No. Not here! Oh, God, please not today!_ Now her heartbeat grew much faster, impossibly, ridiculously fast. Kara supposed it was dumb, even stupider than Matt's fear of the dark, but dogs really scared her. She still had the scars to show for her last encounter with one. She had heard countless times that if you faced an angry dog you should stand still and avert your eyes, but it was harder than it sounded! Unable to control her instinct, Kara began to run -  
  
_Six-year-old Kara walks beside her small brother, Michael, as he carefully rides his brand-new shiny red tricycle over to the Allens' house to show off his trike skills to his role model and Kara's best friend, Matt. It's foggy outside, and it took Kara a while to convince her mother and father that she would be careful and responsible and stay out of trouble. It looked like it might rain, so Kara hurried along, and Michael panted for breath, struggling to keep up, his short, thin, twisted legs pedaling hard.  
Then, Kara hears a rustling in the bushes behind her. A huge brown dog emerges from the brush and begins to bark fiercely. She's not scared, but Michael cowers behind her as she walks up to the big smelly animal, says "nice doggy," and tries to stroke its fur.  
The dog snarls, then snaps at Kara's hand . . . it catches the tip of her finger and leaves just a small mark, but it's enough to scare Kara away. Then, it lunges forward, ugly yellow teeth chomping and gnashing hungrily. Kara turns, stumbles over Michael's tricycle, and runs, leaving her younger brother behind and not looking back.   
In moments the dog catches up and knocks Kara to the ground . . . tears in her eyes, blood in her mouth because she's bitten her tongue, Kara prays that Michael is all right, regrets leaving him only to be attacked moments later, and braces herself for the feel of the dog's sharp teeth tearing through her soft, defenseless flesh . . ._  
  
- Kara was running so fast that she actually slammed into the heavy steel doors of Midwich Elementary. The growling and barking ceased as she pushed the doors open and closed herself safely inside. For a moment she worried that the dog would scratch at the door and search for a way inside, but thankfully it left her alone.  
  
Very alone, in fact. It was as dark in the school as it had been outside, but that could be easily explained. The power had gone out. However, nothing Kara could think of explained why no one sat at the reception desk, why no students walked by on their way to the bathroom or the office, why there were no teachers, janitors, or secretaries standing around and chatting, why it was completely silent except for the sound of thunder and rain pounding down on the roof.  
  
And there was certainly no theory that could possibly explain the most striking thing about the room. The darkness wasn't so bad, and Kara didn't mind being alone. However, she was more than a little frightened when she looked down and saw what covered the wooden floor beneath her feet.  
  
A wide, quickly spreading, dark red pool of blood . . .  
  
A/N: This story relies upon the theory that people who slept through the changes in Silent Hill survived, as in Stephen King's The Langoliers (which I do not own . . . in fact, I don't own Silent Hill either). I've also borrowed an idea from the music video for "Warning", by Incubus. The changes take place on a weekday at 10:24 AM, when almost the entire town is awake. An upcoming fic will take a more in-depth look at the themes introduced in "Warning" (which I also do not own). Tell me what you, my readers, want: more violence, less violence, whatever. I will try to update this fic every day, but I'm not making any promises unless I somehow generate a massive following out of nowhere, and we all know that's not going to happen ^^; 


	3. Matt

**::The Slain::**  
  
Chapter Two:   
  
Blood.  
  
Where there was blood, there was pain.  
  
Kara had plenty of experience with blood. When she was a little kid, even a drop of the sticky red stuff had terrified her. Then she got into sports and constantly ended up with scrapes, cuts, bruises, fractures. Two years ago, she broke her arm when she fell out of a tree, and the sharp bone had pierced right through her skin. She remembered examining the injury in interest, not in fright. There had been a lot of blood then, but nowhere near _this_ much.  
  
_Stay calm. You can't afford to lose it now,_ Kara warned herself. _You can't just run away like before. People get hurt when you run away. People . . . die._  
  
Biting her lower lip hard to keep from bursting into tears, Kara tried to figure out what exactly to do. The most obvious changes in the school's lobby were the absence of people, the darkness, and the blood. However, there were more differences, subtle, and Kara couldn't quite put her finger on what else was wrong. She carefully skirted around the blood and walked toward the wall where teachers, students, and staff posted important notices. She wasn't sure exactly what she expected . . .perhaps a flyer that announced "School will not be in session on Tuesday because of a ridiculous amount of blood in the halls!" Kara had to squint to read the papers in the darkness, but there was nothing of the sort, only the typical "Fall Festival this Saturday!" and "This week is Teacher Appreciation Week!" Kara couldn't decide if she was relieved or disappointed that nothing more was out of the ordinary.  
  
Turning back toward the blood, Kara suddenly felt a familiar tightening in the back of her throat. She tried to desperately gasp for breath, but her lungs refused to obey. _This is it,_ she thought, her mind clouding, her vision dimming, as she collapsed onto the ground, right into the puddle of blood. She coughed, choked uncontrollably. Some of the blood got into her mouth, but at this point she didn't care. _You're going to die,_ her mind informed her. _This is the end and you know it. You've had attacks like this before, but never so bad. It's over . . . _  
  
A terrible, white-hot pain began to burn deep inside Kara's chest. _This is the last thing I'm going to feel, isn't it? Oh mommy . . . Michael . . . I'll be with you soon . . ._  
  
Kara didn't mind that she was going to die. There wasn't much left to live for, anyway. Dad was never the same after Mommy and Michael died, and now all her friends and teachers were gone too. But even though she was more than willing to slip into the gentle embrace of death, she wondered, _After what I did, when I was selfish and I ran away . . . what if I don't go to Heaven? What if . . ._  
  
Just as Kara was about to succumb to the sweet, calming whispers of another world, another life, a single word appeared in her mind: _Matt._  
  
She tried to cry his name, but it came out more like a cross between a hiccup, a cough, and a sob. Matt! Kara wasn't sure why, but she just _knew_ that he was here at school somewhere, waiting for her. He knew she would be late for school, and when everyone else left, he stayed there in the history classroom waiting for her, even though he would be so scared here alone in the dark. If Matt was alive, then there was something to live for after all! Kara took a deep breath - and realized that she could breathe again! _Oh, Matt, I'm okay, and I'm coming!_ Her heart filled with renewed hope, Kara scrambled to get up and run to her history class to find Matt -   
  
- and she slipped in the slick pool of blood, sprawling out across the floor. Common sense slowly began to return to her mind. She looked down and saw that she lay covered in someone else's blood, and before long she threw up her traditional midnight cookies and milk all over the place. But it was okay! Everything was okay. She was still going to find Matt! Sure, after that she'd have to go to the bathroom to wipe all this stuff off, and that might be a problem because Matt wouldn't want to go into the girls' room with her, but that didn't matter now. Everything was going to be all right when Kara had Matt by her side!  
  
Kara stood up (carefully this time) and raced down the hall to Ms. Wainwright's third period history class. She noticed something as she passed by the many closed classroom doors. _It looks old. That's another weird thing . . . this place was built a while ago, but now it looks like it's been abandoned for a long time._ Well, that was no surprise. If the janitor was sloppy enough to leave blood splattered in the lobby, could he really be expected to dust and wash the windows every day? Kara almost giggled at her ability to make a joke even in the face of . . . whatever was going on. Sure, she'd almost snapped for a moment, but she was better now. Years ago, before Dad became withdrawn and just no fun anymore, he used to tell Kara that she was his brave girl, that she would never let him or anyone else down in an emergency. She wanted so much to prove him right. As soon as she found Matt, they would go right to the police station and report that something weird had happened. Then she would be a hero, and newspaper headlines would read, "Courageous Girl Faces Horror of Midwich School Incident". She would call her dad in Brahms and tell him what had happened. Then it would be just like the old days; Dad would start laughing and smiling all the time like he used to, and he would take Kara and Matt to the ice cream shop and the Lakeside Amusement Park, and everything would be perfect. Kara was wondering if maybe the school would be closed and classes canceled for a while when she came upon her classroom and noticed that the door hung wide open.  
  
Normally, an open door wouldn't be much to worry about. But until now, all of the classroom and bathroom and teacher's lounge doors had been shut. Kara cautiously peered inside the room, but she saw nothing. In fact, the darkness inside seemed somehow worse, more _complete_ than the darkness throughout the rest of the school. Although the windows were smudged and dirty, the fog outside was thick, and the weather was bad, a trace amount of sunlight still reached Kara's eyes. Inside the classroom, however, the darkness was solid and impenetrable. Kara was afraid to step inside, scared that the dark would feel as dense and cold as it looked.  
  
_I have to go in. Matt is afraid of the dark more than anything. I can't just leave him alone . . ._  
  
Kara inched forward, and the toe of her left sneaker hit something heavy and hard. She bent down and picked it up. A history textbook. She turned to the inside cover. _Matt's_ textbook, in fact. And in the corner of the first page, a message was scrawled inside a crudely penciled heart, something that made Kara's own heart pound frantically, but not from fear.  
  
_Matt loves Kara._  
  
_So,_ Kara thought, _He really did feel the same way I felt all that time. I always wondered, but I never wanted to say anything . . . _  
  
Kara knew that she had to go into that classroom. Maybe because she was curious about other notes Matt may have written, or maybe because she was stalling, Kara flipped to a random page in the book and saw something that she hoped she'd never have to see again.   
  
Blood. A bloody handprint, in fact, lying there and staining page 125. Kara had been filled with dread for a while, but now it became more noticeable, more pronounced. She just _knew_ that blood was Matt's. He must need her help so badly . . . Kara took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold into darkness.  
  
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and even then she saw only dim, vague shapes. Something moved in a corner, and Kara immediately shouted "Matt? Is that you? Are you all right?"  
  
There was no answer.  
  
Kara carefully approached the corner where Matt sometimes napped at his desk, where he had spent long hours wondering if Kara might just like him the way he hoped she did, where the sound had originated from. Something lay slumped over Matt's desk, and as Kara stepped closer, she knew that it was him. He appeared to be asleep, facedown on the hard desk, though Kara didn't know how he could have slept through whatever had happened. She tentatively touched his shoulder, and his head rolled to one side. She saw his face.  
  
Matt's mouth was wide open in a silent, frozen scream. His eyes were missing, and tears of blood slowly dripped from the empty sockets.   
  
Kara screamed.  
  



	4. But Home is Nowhere

**::The Slain::**  
  
Warning: This chapter is definitely the most disgusting yet. Don't say I didn't warn you O_O;  
  
Chapter Three: But Home is Nowhere…  
  
_I didn't see that._  
  
_Oh, God, please tell me I didn't see that!_  
  
Kara looked again, and Matt was still there, his blood-streaked, torn body a twisted, grotesque parody of what was once a boy - not just a boy, Kara's friend - not just a friend, her best friend in the whole world!  
  
A fat, obscenely glistening fly crawled out of Matt's open mouth and made its way to the terrifying dark hole where his eye should've been.  
  
Kara ran away, sprinting faster than when she had raced Matt to school in more innocent days, faster than she had ever gone down the basketball court, faster than ever before. As she ran, she wailed incoherent words, shouting at the school, the town. Shouting at Matt for not beating whatever unearthly demon had come against him. Shouting at herself for not getting to school in time to save him. Shouting at the world, at life itself for taking away nearly everything that Kara had ever held dear.  
  
Kara's senses betrayed her as she once again traveled the school hallways, glimpsing things in her terror and sorrow that she hadn't noticed before. A bloody knife lying on the floor. Cockroaches swarming over who-knows-what. The changes became more pronounced as Kara neared the front of the school. Cute doodles hung on the walls, pet dogs and houses and families, metamorphosed into crude portraits of impossible, sharp-toothed creatures and gory, dismembered corpses. The walls themselves were now a rusty, bloody brownish-red, covered in stains of an origin that Kara didn't care to ponder.  
  
Past the stains, past the blood, past closed classroom doors beyond which unspeakable horrors lay, Kara ran, pausing in her terrified screams only to catch her breath. Without pause she flung open the school's front door - whatever waited for her out there had to be better than what lurked inside. In other parts of the town there might be people, shelter, love, mercy. In the school there was only fear, pain, and terror.   
  
Kara dashed out into the thick grey banks of fog and was suddenly assaulted by a cacophony of noise; barks, growls, inhuman cries coming from all directions. Dark shapes came at Kara, nothing but teeth and claws and dripping, exposed muscle, and all at once Kara knew what was going on--  
  
_--I'm dead, aren't I? I've died and gone to Hell to pay for what I've done, and I'll never see the light of day again--_  
  
--and the thought terrified Kara so much that she shouted again, her voice primal and full of rage, and her small fists relentlessly pounded the half-decomposed, stinking hellhounds. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the horribly dismembered creatures were gone. Kara whirled around in anger and confusion. Had she really seen such beasts? She couldn't be sure of anything. What was real and what was not? More distorted images came to her through the fog. Messages? Hallucinations? She didn't know. A badly rusted bicycle lying forgotten on its side, one creaky tire eerily spinning. A heap of black roses piled unceremoniously on a forgotten grave, their dark petals glistening with a dew of fresh blood. A child's musty skeleton lying abandoned in an isolated corner until some macabre puppeteer chose to make it rise in a slow, graceful waltz of death…  
  
All at once, Kara found herself standing alone at her own doorstep. The world was silent but for the sound of Kara's own heavily pounding heart. She didn't recall making a conscious decision to return home, and she couldn't remember the cease of her half-insane shrieks. She felt oddly calm, and the sensation seemed fake, somehow forced, most certainly out of place. Looking around, she saw nothing out of the ordinary but for the fog. Now that the spawn of Hell no longer stared her in the face, she began to wonder if any of the day's events had really taken place.  
  
The possibility that Kara was trapped in a nightmare had occurred to her more than once, but she immediately discounted it upon second thought. She had read stories about people who wondered if they were dreaming when something strange or seemingly impossible happened, but it wasn't like that in real life. During a dream, there really was no such thing as free will. A dreamer couldn't think of the possibility that he or she was dreaming unless the illusion commanded the thought. Dreamers are entirely controlled by their subconscious.  
  
_Unless maybe that's not true. Maybe I just don't remember how realistic my dreams are once morning comes. Maybe I'm trapped in this same exact nightmare, this…this prison of doubt, night after night for the rest of my life…_  
  
Kara shivered at the thought, and only then did she remember how cold it was outside. Taking deep breaths to maintain the state of calmness, block out hysteria, she racked her brain for other possibilities. _I'm sick. That's it. I'm running a high fever and I'm seeing things. I'll go inside and call Dad, and then I'll go lie down. Dad will come home early and make me some nice hot chicken soup, and maybe this afternoon Matt will come to my window like he always does when I'm sick, and he'll act like a mime because he's scared that he'll catch my germs if he comes in. I'll even take that nasty herbal medicine that Dad calls his "miracle cure". I don't mind at all, because everything will be okay…_  
  
Considerably calmer, almost smiling, Kara reached for the doorknob and realized that she held something in each hand.  
  
All traces of happiness and complacency vanished from Kara's expression and thoughts. She didn't know how these small round objects had nestled themselves in her palms, but she knew exactly what they were. Kara wished with all her heart that they would somehow disappear so she wouldn't have to look at them and see the finality, the proof. But they remained there, wet, sticky, and warm, and they seemed to burn twin holes through her hands as she held them.  
  
Ragged, anxious breaths tore from Kara's throat as she held her hands out in front of her, and she let out a strangled cry as she saw what lay there. Exactly what she'd expected, what she had known, but now so final, so _real_  
  
Even in death they were lovely, the whites pale and glistening, luminescent as the full moon on a clear summer's night. The circles of deep, mysterious blue-grey were as beautiful as ever. Kara had never seen another pair of eyes quite like Matt's, and she had often stared into them, filled with longing that she didn't quite understand. Every day she had prayed that one day those amazing eyes would look back at her with the same intensity and passion she felt when looking into them. Now, here they were, snug in Kara's hands, under her control. She could almost imagine them as they once had been, sparkling with the pure, essential vitality of innocence, youth, life. Kara uttered a short, shuddering moan in mourning for all that had been lost. This was all that was left of Matt, the sweet, wonderful boy who had always been by her side. The boy she loved. The boy who loved her. She carefully raised one shining orb to her lips and kissed it softly.  
  
Then Kara lowered the eye from her mouth and stared at it incredulously for a moment. These eyes may have once belonged to Matt, but no longer were they anything but a sickening mockery of what they had been in life. How could she have possibly been fooled? The whites had turned a milky yellow, laced with broken veins of red. The once-perfect irises had seemed before to change with Matt's mood, dark and stormy when he was mad, but more often alight with happiness. Now, they had gone dull in the inescapable grip of death. Stringy, bloody pink nerves trailed disgustingly from behind.  
  
_Was I only seeing what I wanted to see?_  
  
With a startled cry, Kara hurled the ruined eyes into the darkness. A stomach-turning urge to find them, keep them, preserve them forever, clutched at her heart, but she refused to give in to it. Matt was dead, and nothing would change that. His broken body, his poor empty shell was lying abandoned in a dusty classroom, decaying and squirming with plump, revolting maggots. He had died alone, in agony, and Kara would never see him again in this life or the next…  
  
For a moment Kara stood there alone, frozen in shock. Then she rushed into the house where she might be safe from the darkness of her own soul. She collapsed on the floor, weeping and praying for the boy who now sang in a chorus of immortal, ethereal light…he had been too good for this world, and now he was finally where he belonged…finally home. Kara imagined the fate that lay before her, and cried even more, though she knew that eternal damnation was exactly what she deserved.  
  
A/N: By this point, no one actually expected me to update again, I'm sure…I wasn't going to, I had no idea where the story should go next (meaning I'm _very_ open to suggestions), but then I had a creepy Silent Hill dream, and it inspired me. So, here you are, chapter three, and if I keep having freaky dreams like that, maybe I'll actually finish the story…eventually. I named this chapter for an AFI song, by the way, and I don't own AFI…oh, and I just realized that Kara sounds similar to Kira, the main character of the fabulous Autopsy Report. Well…it wasn't meant to be that way, and my apologies to Rumer ^^; I didn't really like the ending of this chapter, but what I have planned next should be good. Now, to find a way for everything to make sense…I want to make the story feel more like a Silent Hill game, less blood but more terror. Tell me if I'm being repetitive...there aren't a whole lot of ways to say "she was scared". Don't give up hope, more updates coming…soon, hopefully!   
  



	5. Revelations

**::The Slain::**  
  
Chapter Four: Revelations  
  
Kara sobbed for hours upon hours, shedding more tears than she ever had before. She hugged her knees to her chest, rocked back and forth, until her moans finally degenerated into soft, quiet weeping. She wished that she could go into shock and just lie there like a vegetable for a while until she came to terms with what she had seen. Of course, she wasn't that lucky. She had always cherished her ability to quickly process information and act accordingly, but how was she supposed to act now? Her best friend was dead, and she was covered in his blood. Even if there had been a way to somehow forget about that, what was going to happen next?  
  
When squeezing her eyes shut and trying to make her mind shut down failed, Kara tried to sort out her thoughts and come up with some sort of a plan. She stood, leaned on the door against which she had fallen in despair, and surveyed what she saw before her. Graciously, whatever had infected the outside world hadn't yet made it into her precious house. Everything was just as she had left it not too long ago. Messy, sloppy, lived-in, comfortable, _home_. Not a noise could be heard - no morning birds chirping noisily, but also no unidentifiable growls. Fog pressed at the window as if begging to be invited inside, but it made no move to force its way in.   
  
For the moment, Kara felt reasonably safe. She knew she couldn't let herself get hysterical, but she couldn't forget what she had seen earlier either. She had to have a clear mind in order to map out the best course of action, and she had to be prepared for what she might be faced with. Anything could happen, she reasoned. _I don't know what happened here, so I have to expect the unexpected, like they say in cartoons all the time. But how can I do that? It's unexpected…so I don't expect it! I don't know who I can trust…I don't know if there's anyone left to trust. I wish Dad was here. He'd know what to do._  
  
Of course! Dad! Kara wasn't sure if anyone in Silent Hill could help her. Obviously some incredibly screwed-up genetic experiments had gotten loose from their cage--  
  
_--or maybe the monsters stepped right out of my mind, out of my dreams--_  
  
--or maybe she hadn't really seen those creatures at all. Maybe some secret society of brutal assassins had decided to come torment the residents of Silent Hill. The exact problem didn't really matter. Kara didn't want to face Matt's murderer, no matter who or what it was. But whatever had been unleashed upon Silent Hill couldn't possibly have reached Brahms yet, right? Kara's mind was made up. She would go out into the town, and if she didn't find anyone who could help her, she'd pull her old skates out of the garage and roll the entire twenty miles to her dad's office in Brahms.  
  
_It won't take me more than two hours or so, and I just know Dad will be there waiting for me. I'll probably meet him in his car halfway. He'll hear from one of his friends at work that something terrible happened in Silent Hill, and he's already on his way to come get me. I can't depend on that, though…maybe he can't get through because of all the people trying to get back to their kids, or the government set up a roadblock or something. No matter what, I'll find him._  
  
Kara wasn't too happy about having to leave the apparent safety of her home, but she told herself that it really wasn't any safer than outside. If something wanted to get to her bad enough, it was pretty easy to get inside. Nervously shivering with the prospect of some huge _thing_ suddenly busting through the wall and crushing her to bits, Kara busied herself with the task of gathering supplies for the trip ahead. She opened her backpack and dumped its contents onto the floor. Neatness was the last thing that mattered today. She tiptoed through the house to her room, looking behind her with every step to ensure that she wasn't being stealthily followed.  
  
She stopped in the living room, an idea occurring to her. There should be some sort of breaking news report on TV, shouldn't there? Kara hadn't thought of that before. The absence of people at school had made the impression that there wasn't anyone else around, though she had to admit that she hadn't checked the school very thoroughly.  
  
She pictured the bulletin in her head. A neatly dressed woman sitting behind a desk would announce, as a dramatic score played in the background, "This is a Channel Five News special report. The citizens of Silent Hill fled in fear today when…" When what? Kara turned on the television in hopes that the clean-cut young newscaster would finish her sentence onscreen, but all she saw was static. Kara flipped through the channels and found nothing but a mass of snowy dots. There was no sound, no white noise, but that was hardly out of the ordinary after the rest of the day's events. Kara wasn't too disappointed. At this point, she hadn't expected anything to go her way.  
  
In her room, Kara found a small green pocket radio. Like the TV, she couldn't get it to work, but she put it in her backpack anyway. As she neared Brahms, radio stations might begin coming in clear. Remembering the temperatures outside, Kara pulled a heavy black winter coat from her closet to replace the thin jacket that she wore. Then, she grabbed her purple plastic watch off of the floor and strapped it onto her wrist. She sighed when she saw that the digital numbers uselessly flashed "00:00", but she left the watch on anyway. Who knew…maybe the watch really worked perfectly, and she'd see that the second time she looked. She desperately wanted to change out of the blood-soaked clothes she wore, but the thought of being naked even for a moment in such a crazy nightmare place mortified her beyond belief.  
  
Last but not least, Kara opened her jewelry box and carefully removed the only necklace she owned that wasn't made of flimsy, sparkly plastic: a delicate cross on a thin gold chain. She clutched it tightly in both hands, bowed her head, and whispered "Dear God…I need you now more than ever." Then she clasped it around her neck and walked quietly out of the room.  
  
In the top drawer of the dresser in Dad's room was a gun. Kara didn't know what kind it was or how to use it, but she had to have some sort of protection. At the very least, she might be able to scare people away with the threat of a loaded weapon. The drawer was locked, but Kara knew that Dad kept the key in a shoe in his closet. She had noticed it there years earlier during a game of hide-and-seek with Matt. Dad had told her about the gun long ago - Kara supposed it was because he wanted her to always feel safe at home - but he didn't think she knew of the key's secret hiding place.  
  
Kara approached the closet and stood there in front of the door for a moment, trying to get up the nerve to open it. She knew there probably wasn't anything crouched in wait inside the closet, and the outside world was far more frightening than this tiny room in the middle of her house, but she had never been a fan of small, dark, enclosed places. She held her breath and flung open the door, and she was surprised by the sight that lay before her.  
  
The little brass key lay there on the floor right in front of her, as if she was meant to stumble across it. _So what? That's not so weird. Dad was probably looking for his favorite loafers this morning, and he accidentally moved the key._ Still, there was something strangely menacing about the appearance of the key. Kara tried to ignore the feeling of her hair standing on end as she picked up the key and went to the nightstand.  
  
Kara slipped the key into the lock and turned it. There was the gun…but along with it came a very unexpected shock.  
  
Alongside the pistol lay two items: a small plastic bag filled with some white stuff that looked like flour, and a few folded sheets of paper smeared with blood. Kara's hands shook as she lifted the bag to the light and looked at it. She was a smart girl, and she knew what this meant. _I can't believe that. My dad would never ruin his life with drugs…would he?_  
  
Maybe answers lay in the ominous blood-streaked note. Kara wouldn't have touched it if she hasn't been so worried for her father. _I can't trust anything else in the world anymore. I have to be able to trust Dad._  
  
Kara unfolded the paper, careful to avoid touching the blood. Silly, really, considering she was covered in the stuff, but she didn't want to think about that. The note was in her mother's handwriting. Though Kara would have sworn moments before that she could never cry again after weeping so long for her friend, tears came to her eyes as she began to read. _Dear David,  
  
I have spent long, sleepless hours wondering just how to begin this letter, and worrying that you won't understand what I have to say. There's no easy way to tell you, I have to be straightforward: I'm going away . . . not to a better place, but to a place that will give me what I deserve._   
  
The letter went on to tell of the darkness of Anna Sanders' heart. Kara couldn't possibly believe these things about her mother, but here they were, plain as day on a crisp sheet of paper that still smelled of Mommy's perfume. That melancholy scrawl brought to mind days when a much younger Kara sat next to her mother's desk, both girls writing letters to their best friends, one with a stubby red crayon and the other an expensive fountain pen.  
  
_But she wasn't really my mommy at all, was she? I was…adopted. I don't even know my own family…_  
  
The terror of forbidden secrets began to sink in, and Kara's mind flooded with questions. _I can't believe it. She hated Michael. Mothers are supposed to love their sons no matter what…and it was her fault he was born that way! Now I understand why she killed herself. Those drugs must be hers…but she said she got rid of them all. But that means…Dad…_  
  
Kara was sickened by the blasphemy that invaded her thoughts. Her legs turned to jelly, and she fell onto her father's neatly made bed. Theories and possibilities swam through her head. Why had so much been kept secret from her for so long? She was mature enough to handle it, wasn't she?  
  
_Wait a minute. Whose blood was on that letter anyway? Maybe--_  
  
Before Kara could even manage to finish her thought, she was pulled out of her perplexed reverie by a sudden noise in the hallway. _Thud_, and then _thud_ again, like heavy, dragging footsteps slowly inching forward.  
  
Kara realized that she was quietly moaning "nooo…" under her breath.  
  
The sound of labored breathing filled the house, both Kara's and the struggling gasps of whatever was approaching. Kara wanted to escape, run, hide in the closet, anything to get away, but she was frozen in place with a paralyzing fear.  
  
A shape appeared in the doorway. It was much shorter than Kara, maybe three feet tall, but its horribly mutated features made it as threatening a presence as anything twice its size.  
  
It was vaguely human in shape, but its skin hung loose on a withered frame. It moved with an exaggerated limp resulting from one foot twisted cruelly backward and bent behind it. It wore what appeared to be tattered grey rags, stretched and contorted over a lumpy, misshapen body. One arm ended in a blunt wrinkled stump, the other in two ragged, claw-like fingers that curled tightly around a sharp bloodstained knife.  
  
The face was by far the worst of all. The eyes were dull and sunken, set too far back in the deformed skull. The nose melted into the terrible mouth, which was little more than a horizontal slash lined with rows of tiny pointed teeth. It was a distorted, horrifying monster, dripping with blood and covered in grime as if it had risen from a stinking dark grave. When Kara saw this creature, her eyes widened in a combination of surprise, fear, and pure regretful love.  
  
Staring into the thing's face (or the lack thereof), Kara gasped. "Michael?"  
  
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~  
  
A/N: Sorry this chapter started out a little slow. I hope I made up for it at the end. Thanks to all my reviewers so far, especially Ranchanthananalas, who helped me quite a lot with my recent writer's block. I've decided that "The Slain" will simply be a chronicle of Kara's adventures in Silent Hill, while a sequel will take one of Ran's ideas into account and explain what Kara is doing there. Don't worry, you'll see how it works out soon enough.  
  
Even though I'm not supposed to do this, I have a question…should the sexual themes mentioned in the warning in the prologue actually be a part of this story, or should I turn that into another story entirely? I have two ideas, and either will work. It all depends on what the readers want. Maybe I should change the rating to R now..or maybe I should forget the sexual themes entirely, considering I'm only 15 and I really shouldn't even know about these things o_o; Anyway...now I'll stop confusing you and go write chapter 5.  
  
~Ashley Michelle J. Pineapple IV  
  



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